There’s an old adage in marketing that goes, you go where your customers are. In the digital world, that means going to social media where most people spend time online. Therefore, small businesses that make good use of social media can achieve great milestones. But how do you reach your potential customers through this digital landscape?

How do you navigate through the massive online space full of pitfalls and potential mishaps? The smart thing you can do is to partner with experts in social media marketing in Montreal if your business is located there. You will be sure that you are taking the right steps toward the implementation of social media marketing in your brand. Taking the wrong move can course more harm than good to your brand.

Here are a few quick tips to get you started:

1. Create a Solid Plan:

Failing to plancan be your downfall. Several businesses have failed greatly because they did not have a solid plan for social media in place. If you don’t have ready policies in place to deal with various contingencies, you’ll encounter a lot of problems along the way that will be difficult to bounce back from. You’re not able to schedule your tasks and allocate your resources properly, which wastes a lot of your time and money. Therefore, you need a clear plan on every aspect of social media advertisement.

Without a cohesive plan, some of your people may focus on disparate objectives that may even prove counterproductive. You may also have people doing the same things, which is again a waste of their efforts. The good thing with having the right plan in place is that it will give your social media marketing efforts a direction. You will know what to do at each step of your marketing efforts. It is dangerous to move aimlessly because you will not head anywhere.

You need to make a plan and set schedules, with tasks assigned for various personnel and the money to fuel your efforts. Marketing on social media is like a military campaign—you need a solid plan to make it work. No one can succeed in social media marketing in the absence of a solid plan on how he will be executing all activities.

2. Choose the Right Social Media Platform:

You can’t simply guess which platform to focus your marketing efforts on, because you risk putting all of your efforts to waste. Just because Facebook is the most popular platform doesn’t mean it’s the right platform for your business. If you’re focusing on teens, then you may do better concentrating your efforts on Snapchat and Instagram.

Therefore, you have to understand where your target audience spend a lot of time before choosing a platform. You must go to the place where your consumers are and not wait for them to look for you. The implication is that you have to do a lot of research to determine where your audience are spending most of their time. Using the wrong platform is a waste of your precious time and money.

You need to understand the unique features of each platform to identify which oneworks with your plan. For Facebook, a large number of users are within the age bracket from 25 to 36 years old. Therefore, understand the demographic attributes of your users for you to choose the right social media platform.

Instagram, on the other hand, has 55% of its users within the 18 to 29 years old bracket. Snapchat also was ranked the #1 favorite social network by 46% of all US teens. Instagram was ranked #2 with 32% regarding as their favorite. Only 6% of teens consider Facebook as their favorite, and that’s tied with Twitter.

For those who need to connect with other businesses and professionals, the hands down best social media platform is LinkedIn. You can achieve great success in your social media marketing endeavors as long as you choose the right platform. People who have made the wrong choices will tell you that the process is not only frustrating but also costly.  In fact, you may end up coursing adverse effects to the reputation of your brand by choosing the wrong platform. It is good to seek for professional assistance if you don’t know the right platform. You can also get some social media platforms that will help you to make the right choices.

3. Concentrate on Non-Promotional Content:

Some people still think traditionally and in their minds, publishing promotional content on the social media platforms is enough. But the goal of social networking platforms isn’t to provide you with a captive audience for your promos. It’s to foster meaningful communication and engagement. It’s a 2-way street. Therefore, you have to publish highly informative content that will add value to the users. Customers will shy away from your social media pages if they discover that you like publishing promotional content. You have to give them knowledge then allow them to make independent purchase decisions. Customers don’t like brands that try to arm twist them to consume their products.

You have to build trust, and that means offering valuable content instead of merely promotional materials. Offer news regarding your industry, share tips on what tools are effective for people to use, and provide advice. You need to appear as if your main goal is to be a friend. You want to be of service, instead of blatantly wanting to increase your sales. Ironically, being seen as helpful can actually boost your sales in the long run.

Conclusion:

You may say that these 3 tips aren’t enough, and you’re right. They barely scratch the surface of what you need to do to succeed on social media marketing. Coming up with a comprehensive strategy for such an undertaking is a massive job, and to do so properly you need real experts to help you.

That’s the ultimate tip when it comes to social media. Don’t think that you can do it yourself. Get help from social media professionals instead, and you’ll have a much better shot at success.

Read Also:

• 7 Tips on Social Media Marketing for Small Business
• 10 Social Media Marketing Strategies for Companies (Info-graphic)